


meanwhile the world goes on

by theatrythms



Series: i guess that this must be the place [1]
Category: DC Animated Universe (Timmverse), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Family, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Season 3 Spoilers, Team as Family, Wally West is Alive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 08:55:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17557262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theatrythms/pseuds/theatrythms
Summary: It’s the adjustment that’s hardest.It’s two years of his life that just went on without him.(and it’s a little hard for Wally to not be bitter about it.)





	1. the future has been at war

**Author's Note:**

> .... season 3 huh  
> ANYWAY this is a slight disclaimer in the sense that im not very well-versed in the idea of the speedforce but i figured since it hasnt shown up in yj yet might as well give my own take lmao  
> please enjoy !  
> title is from mary oliver's poem 'wild geese'  
> also tried to encorperate the idea that Wally becomes faster than Barry , which is incredible sick and op

You do not have to be good.  
You do not have to walk on your knees  
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.  
You only have to let the soft animal of your body  
love what it loves.

\- Mary Oliver

-

It’s the adjustment that’s hardest.

It’s losing the apartment in Palo Alto. It’s leaving his degree half-finished. It’s Lian being older and less baby-faced and talking and actually acting like a small human. It’s Dick settling down monogamously and Kal running the Justice League and Aunt Iris having her twins and M’Gann and Connor getting back together and-

It’s two years of his life that just went on without him.

(It’s a little hard for Wally to not be bitter about it.)

-

They suggest therapy.

Dinah tells him to make goals for himself. Aims and achievements to ground him. So far that means no running, studying to finish his degree, live with Artemis again and try to stay away from League business.

“Retired means retired now.” Dinah nods, not even writing anything down. “You’re not the only one of your old teammates who followed that.” Even she’s different, deeper laugh lines and lines on her forehead.

“Retired always meant retired.” He tries not to bite out, wondering what the Justice League definition of retired got everyone so confused.

“Even Dick took a break.”

“Dick started a new team.”

Dinah just stares hard, processing what he says and what he means. Everyone looks at him like that now.

“Even you broke retirement sometimes.” She meets his eyes again, and this time he looks away first.

Like they don’t know what to do with him.

-

How Wally got home is a story with multiple versions.

There’s Bart, who tells him he hit the ground like a lightning bolt, twitching and screaming and burning, all charred and wrecked.

Uncle Barry says the sky tore apart and out came Wally, bruised and broken and still twenty years old, asking if anyone knew where Artemis was.

To the civilian guests at the wedding, like Wendy and Marvin and M’gann’s work colleagues, he washed up onto shore in a Kid Flash costume, their memory of the great clap of lightning erased from their memories, by the sweet whisperings of M’gann and Zatanna.

(He was always one for a good entrance.)

M’gann and Conner stood transfixed at the altar as he fell through the air, just like he was flying. The large wedding marquee erected on the sand of Happy Harbour is the first thing he sees when his head reaches above the water, the temptation to float back down until he reached the deep sand so overwhelming and comforting, until Kaldur and Barry and Bart are running to the ocean, and Wally’s never felt so wanted.

To Artemis, one second she was keeping an eye on Donny and Dawn and Lian, all in their pearl and seafoam dresses and bowties, the next her supposedly dead boyfriend is crash landing into the sea, falling limply, and the scream that tore from her throat is still the same as the one from the Arctic.

He spun and dived and shot down like a swooping bird. While they ran to him he beats them to it, swimming forward and up into a sprint, leaving the salt water curdling and hissing in his wake.

He’s been running for a long time, Artemis thought, still does now, even when she hasn’t seen him run faster than a jog since the wedding.

But even soaking and bruised and half-delirious, he got to Artemis, and she’s the first person to hold him again. M’gann dropped all sense of poise and literally flew over the guests’ heads and Conner immediately started to cry, harder than Wally thought the guy had ever before, joining in on the circle and hugging him close. Kaldur drags Dick with him into the hug and even Zatanna and Raquel loop their arms around them.

It was a reunion, fourth of July style, with better fireworks than anyone could’ve counted on.

-

There’s more to adjusting than he first realized.

Once he’s all rested up, the Justice League want answers. Or at least want to answer the questions his death brought. Calling friends from all fields of magic, science, space and time, Batman and Uncle Barry want to know what happened.

Even Bart doesn’t know, which says a lot for the kid who could tell anyone Justice League-oriented what will happen to them in the next ten years.

Batman packs together a nice witness protection claim to give to Stanford to explain his absence, and he’s free to start up classes whenever. Artemis pushed through the rest of her degree like she was chewing glass, and the first thing he notices about her house in Star City with Roy-Will--it’s Will now, even though he has no idea who the real Roy is because it’s always been Clone-Roy in his life, give or take a few weeks--is that she doesn’t have her diploma hung up, even though that was the only thing he ever wanted to see; her’s and his side by side, in whatever city they went to next when the Palo Alto chapter had closed.

But Star City is a bit odd. Learning to slot back into Artemis’ life in the more intimate moments is easy; like waking up with her again, talking to her, kissing her and saying I love you. It’s the rest that’s weird. It’s Tigress that’s weird. It’s someone called Violet Harper who sleeps hovering above his couch from Palo Alto that’s weird.

Still, Violet is sweet. She has an array of very different powers and when Kaldur strong-armed him into lying down on the beach, Violet goes bright purple all over and her light washes over him.

“All clear!” She’d proclaimed, and despite his confusion over the whole thing it sure came off as a good thing, when Artemis sobbed and smiled and kissed him.

Artemis works as a personal trainer in a Star City gym, dreams of becoming a physiotherapist seemingly put on hold. He’s glad she moved on, doesn’t feel a weird twinge whenever she mentions something that happened while he was gone. She still talked to his parents and she made an effort to talk to Aunt Iris, and that means more than the whole wide world to him.

After all, he just wanted her to be happy, with or without him.

Violet one night, very tentatively, starts talking about all Artemis has done for her. It’s more than giving her a home and giving her a name.

“She used to talk about you.” She states, pulling at the fabric around her neck, something Wally has noticed she does when she’s nervous. He swallows down the worry that he’s the one making her nervous, or like he’s taken the stability Artemis and Dick fought so hard to engraine in her life. “Happy memories, like when you were both younger, and call you her spitfire.” Violet’s face melts into a soft smile, all dreamy and bright eyed. “She told me to find my spitfire, and to never let them go.”

It hurts more than he thought it would, that bone-crushing realisation of all the pain he caused Artemis. If he knew he was coming back he would've told her not to worry.

Six months, four leagues under the sea feels like nothing next to two years running and running and running.

Wally kisses her extra long and extra sweet the next morning, and promises he’ll be there when she gets home.

-

Getting back into things with Dick is harder than it is with Artemis.

There’s a distance he doesn’t get. A distance he didn’t realise was there.

It’s not really a distance. It’s just two years apart and Dick is different in all the ways that matter.

Namely he stops wearing sunglasses. Identity and secrets are a thing of the past. Artemis says

(Wally just wishes it wasn’t because he died.)

They work it out one day. It sounds more macho and masculine than it actually was. One day when Wally was hanging around the Harper household and Dick arrived, a duffle bag of snacks and a thousand apologies on his tongue.

Instead he bursts into tears on the doorstep and they spend the rest of the day slacked against each other, with headaches that only come from exhaustion after crying.

-

The comfort comes from unusual places.

“Definitely feels like there’s a before and after phase.” Barbara’s voice sounds as far off as his. He’s sitting in Dick and Barbara’s apartment and Wally can’t get over how lived in it feels. How Bludhaven is the one place amongst everywhere else that would make Dick settle down. The back room has been converted into a base of operations and a wall of screens. Their eyes are trained on them, the display so clear and crisp and frighteningly real. Makes Wally feel like he’s there with them. Makes Wally feel like maybe that’s the whole point.

“You know,” Barbara shrugs, and even smiles. “Before getting shot and after.”

“Before disappearing into the light and after.” Wally phrases it as a joke but it doesn’t really land. Artemis and Dick are on a mission with the new team hastily assembled together, broken teenagers and aliens pulled like a plate held together with duct tape; functional but maybe not practical.

Barbara doesn’t mind the bad joke. She types for a bit and talks to Dick and runs logistics, and in less than a year after retiring she’s still found a way back.

He supposes they all do. Even he did, whenever Barry needed him. Which wasn’t much, but Barry got his powers post-college and understood why he had to step back with assignments and classes and lab work. Besides, Bart is Kid Flash now, in a modified suit that’s much more ‘crash’ than the last one, and much faster than Wally was in red and yellow.

(Wally hasn’t run since the wedding. There’s that weird fear that running faster than he could before will make things different, even when all he wants to do is get back to normal, the way things were, and look older than twenty.)

“Not saying you should or anything,” Barbara quips, her mic turned way down as Nightwing and Tigress and Geoforce and Halo sleuth through a sewer system. “But you could always try going for a run.” She says, as if she’s read his mind. “You could bring Bart and Barry, make a day of it? No one's saying you need to be back immediately.”

Oracle smiles, the same one that used to peak out under her cowl on weekdays when she was finishing homework with Dick. He feels like he’s not the first hero she’s coaxed into believing in themselves, after such a hard blow. “Lord knows I wish I understood that better, and y’know, took a proper break.”

Wally’s about to reply, until Terra, Brion’s manic and wild and lava-wielding sister appears from the very earth itself and goes straight for her brother. The mission goes back on, and there’s no point in saying anything else.

-

He’s faster than before.

Well, much faster. Faster than Bart ever was or could be. He laps him once while they run through the expanses of the Grand Canyon, up the burnt orange walls and through the red sand. Even holding back, afraid of free-falling into the light again.

He can be fast, but not too fast. He wonders if it’s an issue Barry and Bart deal with. The Kid Flash Wally was had a limit, the speedster Wally has become doesn’t, but it comes with a fear.

“With great power comes great responsibility n’ all that jazz, right cuz?” Bart needles into him, flashing a winning smile. Considering he found Bart while he was trying to crawl out of Jaime’s bedroom at five in the morning in Texas, Bart has a long way to go about responsibility.

It’d been an amusing sight to see. “You’re not even subtle, y’know that?” Wally had brought a hand to his face and sighed, his nerves bouncing off every atom in him like kamikaze planes crashing.

“I have you know, I haven’t even set off the sprinklers in months.” Bart retorted, half hanging out of the window.

“Pro-tip, cuz, try and date someone that already has an exit strategy, like a fire escape.”

“And where’s the adventure in that? Who needs to go lift weights at the gym when I’ve been hauling my ass up two stories to get to my man?” Bart shimmied himself the full way out, landing soft enough that no one in the house woke up, but it did set off next door’s dog. “Also, if anything, I’m safer than you ever were. Crawling around Gotham at night is breaking city curfew, Jaime lives in the desert, nothing here but the bugs and rats and coyotes to-”

Wally ripped it off like a bandaid. “Wanna go for a run?”

Bart’s green eyes practically glowed at the offer. “That would be so crash man.”

The glowing in his eyes didn’t really dim. When Saturday morning blends into Saturday night, the stars are clear in the California desert, bright and blinking. He sprints from Arizona to California in faster than he’s ever been able to make it, and it's a crack of lightning that throws him into the Joshua Tree National Park, Bart trailing behind a minute later.

“You must be faster than Grandpa! That’s like, wickedly crash man, absolutely crazy, crash and-”

It’s praise that doesn’t do much for him. It gives him an abnormal aftertaste after all that running. For the first time ever he’s not tired, or needing refuel. Like what Barbara said; before and after.

Kid Flash was before. Slow and steady but just the right amount. After is whatever the person he is now, slightly unstable and no grip on how fast he’s going.

Bart doesn’t push it when his face falls, instead salutes and starts off running towards Central City, and Wally makes it to Star City too fast for him to even think about where he’s going next.

“Wait, wait, wait. Just how fast are we talking here?”

“Dick,” Artemis glares pointedly. “Not the right question to ask.”

“I don’t even know how fast.” Wally admits, running his hand along the length of his face. In their sitting room, Brion and Violet are watching a movie that runs behind their conversation, the undercurrent stopping them from all blowing up at each other. Conner and Kal and M’gann just sit with him on the oak table, the Atlantean tea in front of them blowing colder and colder. “Just. Faster than Barry, according to Bart.”

“Faster than the Flash?” Kal’s voice takes a flat note. The Aqualad Wally last saw in the final days of the Reach Invasion is gone. Aquaman, leader of the Justice League joining him at the table. “Faster than Barry Allen?”

He knows the pecking order of the league. When new, stronger forces join, there’s nothing left for you but retirement. It happens with the Robins and then Kaldur ascended to Aquaman when Arthur couldn’t. Someday Nightwing will become Batman and it’ll be Dick wearing the cowl. The idea of being faster than the Flash is scary, because Wally isn’t supposed to become the Flash, not now and not ever.

“I felt faster too.” Wally offers lamely, and he can feel Artemis’ eyes on the back of his head as he talks. “And there’s lightning now, that’s never happened before. And it doesn’t happen for Uncle Barry.”

“Lightning?” M’gann’s voice is prodded with curiosity, and she sounds the way he’s felt all day.

Everything seems to pull itself together in the centre of his chest. “Something is different.” He says, somewhat watery, like he wants to cry but can’t, like he wants to laugh but nothing is funny. “I’m different. I have no idea what’s going on.”

Somewhere, deep down he knows he lost himself in that bright world of blue and dead light and no warmth. Somewhere, deep down, he knows that whoever he was before and who he is now share nothing more than a face and a name. And even then, his face is two years younger than everyone else.

It’s Artemis that pulls him out, as always.

“Wally, you’re not different.” She smiles sweetly, holds his hands in her’s and rubs circles into his knuckles. “You have different powers, sure, that’s changed, and you look the same way you did when we lost you, but you’re the same guy I fell in love with. Just faster, and a little younger looking, but it’s still you.”

“Despite everything, it’s still you.”

-

The solution is that he starts running tests.

They take his bloods and compare them to the ones he had on file since he was thirteen, all the way up to nineteen, when he formally retired at the start of semester two in first year. They have him run, as fast as he’s comfortable going and sprint towards and uncertain distance, in a room that stretches as far as he does, that is as long as it is as far as he can run. Sometimes Barry joins him and they watch old Iris West-Allen reporter reruns while they wear out the floor. Most times its Bart, zipping around the simulator cube, now back in his Impulse costume. Iris pawns the twins off to them one day and they join them, in the room that goes on for miles, designed to keep up with them all.

“You could go faster, if you’d like.” Barry says, with such a look of pride it gets Wally all choked up.

(Barry was the one who sat by his hospital bed, after he blew himself up in his shed.)

“I don’t wanna leave you behind.” It comes out weaker than its supposed to.

“You’re not leaving me behind.” Barry shakes his head. “I just want you to go as far as you can go.”

So Wally does. It feels like he’s been given permission to stretch forward, reach for that light, even if he’s scared. Lightning hurdles through the room and he hits the wall.

This is unlimited, after so long of being held back.

-

They call it the speedforce.

Just the center of all their powers. What makes them run. And where Wally was kept for two years.

“Truth be told, and well, spoiler alert I guess, but the Flash doesn’t cop on to what the speedforce is for another ten years until my dad and Dawn start running.” Bart offers. “Two years there must’ve marinated your powers until you became super-flash or something. I didn’t make the connection until now because as far as we were aware, the speedforce wasn’t a destination, just a power source.”

“Well, that’s that settled.” Wally claps his hands, and likes how this weird chapter of his life is wrapping up with the beginning of college in just a few weeks. He doesn’t want to uproot Artemis in Star City, so the commute is looking like a zeta to Palo Alto and back every day.

She doesn’t say it, but he knows she’s grateful for that.

Besides, all he has left is final year.

“Can’t believe I’m dating a college guy.” Artemis laughs, on his last morning before he starts class. Violet knows her way around the zeta tubes to be able to get to Happy Harbour and back without assistance for her senior year, Lian starts ‘big-girl school’ and Will is at work, clipboard and all.

So it’s just them, lazy and tired, freckled and tan skin wrapped around each other.

“Sure you’re not just making that up to impress your friends?” He grins, and she pushes against his shoulder.

“Of course he’s real, he takes me to frats all the time.”

“Okay, even when we were in college at the same time, I never took you to a frat house or party, thank you very much.”

“And I’ve been so thankful you never did.” Artemis’ smile is genuine, all teeth and full lips.

He doesn’t know what compels him to say it then, but it just feels right.

“Marry me.” Wally states, and it rolls of the tongue like it should’ve been said years ago.

“Hum?” She asks, but she’s smiling still so he knows she heard him.

Wally pulls her closer, winds his arms around her waist and kisses where Artemis’ neck meets her shoulder. “Will you marry me?”

Her answer is sweet and one worded, whispered against his lips and he swallows down all her love.

-

Life is good when it settles down.

Well, it settles down as much as a life of saving the world can. He doesn’t move out of the Harper’s and he graduates and heads straight into a masters, all while the fight against the Light and the Darkseid continues.

(Wally doesn’t think it’ll ever really end, but that’s what they’re for.)

He’s out on the field sometimes, the quick flash of lightning hitting the ground as he runs and Artemis’ golden hair shines against her green.

It’s a nice life to continue.

Almost makes two years gone feel like a quick break. A quick minute to step out of all of this and break some hearts along the way.

Artemis gets a little teary when they send Violet off to college, one free ride to Markovia University, Brion returning to his homeland, all for the purpose of keeping Tara in house arrest, or palace arrest, at least.

“You gonna be this sad when we send our kids off to school?” He grins, but feels like he’s sixteen again, worrying if she’d think asking about prom was too far into the future to think about.

Instead she surprises him, like she always does. “You know I will.” She places her hand on his chest, leaning back. “Not now though, you’re still in college.”

“True, true, but I figure Will needs a male friend at his super-parents playdates.”

Artemis hums, her small silver band glinting. “Well, tempting argument, but I think I need a bit of preparation before raising speedster kids.”

“Iris always needs babysitters? I say we start getting practice in now?”

“Not gonna happen babe,” she sing-songs, but her eyes are full of joy and mirth. “Wouldn’t say no to a different kind of practice?”

Life settling down is full of its own perks.

But mainly it’s full of being alive, and having the joy to spend it with Artemis.


	2. but it's coming home so soon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four years after, the name Alice sort of slips out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> didnt know if i should just stick this on to the last chapter so i gave it its own place ! cute lil epilogue ! chapter title comes from neil hilborn's 'the future' . thanks for reading !

The future has been at war

But it's coming home so soon.

\- Neil Hilborn

-

The name Alice sort of slips out.

 

Once he hears it, there’s no other way of looking at her, only minutes old and but still wonderfully his. She’s got small, closed fists, eyes like Artemis in all of her baby pictures and the loudest cry he’s ever heard.

 

Wally heard Artemis whisper it against the crown of her head, the water of the birthing pool a murky red. She strokes the baby’s head, all down along her small arms and down the slope of her back.

 

“What’s that?” He says, but his own voice sounds shaky, like everything he says now needs to be much gentler, much softer now, now that she’s here.

 

Artemis meets his eyes, rimmed with silver and tired, but happy and still crying from all of her effort. “I like the name Alice. Alice Iris West really packs a punch.” She worries her lip, almost nervous looking.

 

Wally considers it, twining his hand into her’s on their baby’s back. He tries to imagine the name on a birth certificate, christening cert, scrawled in a child’s scribble that will evolve into the same polished script of her mother’s. Alice West on certificates and awards and birthday cards.

 

Nicknames work too. Names like Wallace and Artemis came with something to shorten. Ally, Ali, Lissy. All slide in with Wally, Wallman and Ace; Arty, Art, Missy.

 

Once Wally thinks about it, the name sticks and it's hard to think of her any other way.

 

“Are we really naming her after your favorite childhood novel?”

 

“So that’s a yes then?”

 

“Well, once we get a pen to sign it and make it official.”

 

“Or,” Artemis shifts, gently moving Alice off her chest and into his arms. “You could hold her for a while. I can’t get enough of her but I’m a bit tired, and the water’s getting a bit cold.”

 

A team of midwives and nurses help dry Artemis and lay her in the hospital bed, all while Wally keeps his daughter close to him, close where she can hear his heartbeat if she wanted.

 

Alice Iris West is the entire world held in his hands. For the first time, in a long, long time, he wants the world to just slow down. 

 

“I love you.” Artemis says softly, eyes sliding shut and lips quirking upwards.

 

He just wants it to slow down for a bit, here in this hospital room.

 

Just for now.

 

Just for them.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks again !!!

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading ! once again , i dont claim to know all abt the speedforce , i tried to keep it as vague as possible bc goddamn i miss wally a lot . nightmare monkeys was probably my favorite episode of the season so far bc of creative it was w its direction . thank you again !


End file.
